She knelt down on the hearth, and took her friend's hands excitedly in her own. by Robert Barnes. Plate 11, Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, which appeared in the London The Graphic, 13 March 1886, Chapter XXIV, p. 293. 17.7 cm high by 22.8 cm wide — 6 ¾ inches high by 8 ¾ inches wide. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Elizabeth assesses Lucetta's being attracted to Farfrae
A seer’s spirit took possession of Elizabeth, impelling her to sit down by the fire and divine events so surely from data already her own that they could be held as witnessed. She followed Lucetta thus mentally — saw her encounter Donald somewhere as if by chance — saw him wear his special look when meeting women, with an added intensity because this one was Lucetta. She depicted his impassioned manner; beheld the indecision of both between their lothness to separate and their desire not to be observed; depicted their shaking of hands; how they probably parted with frigidity in their general contour and movements, only in the smaller features showing the spark of passion, thus invisible to all but themselves. This discerning silent witch had not done thinking of these things when Lucetta came noiselessly behind her and made her start.
It was all true as she had pictured — she could have sworn it. Lucetta had a heightened luminousness in her eye over and above the advanced colour of her cheeks.
“You’ve seen Mr. Farfrae,” said Elizabeth demurely.
“Yes,” said Lucetta. “How did you know?”
She knelt down on the hearth and took her friend’s hands excitedly in her own. But after all she did not say when or how she had seen him or what he had said. [Chapter XXIV, in serial 293; in volume, pp. 204-205]
Commentary: The Intimate Relationship between the Two Casterbridge Outsiders
The scene is the elegantly furnished parlour of Lucetta Templeman's Casterbridge residence, High Place Hall, not far from the Corn Exchange. As the passage follows the thoughts of Elizabeth-Jane as she assesses he friend's relationship with the younger man in her life, Donald Farfrae, Barnes has Elizabeth, her bonnet still on from the street, look knowingly at the readers, as if we are watching the scene play out on stage. Despite her youth, Hardy and Barnes have made Elizabeth a perceptive judge of social proprieties — and improprieties. In its intimacy between the two women the plate anticipates the climactic moment when Elizabeth and Lucetta, on the balcony outside this well-appointed, urbane environment, react very differently to the Skimmington procession in the street below, an event that precipitates Lucetta's miscarriage and exit from the narrative in Chapter XXXIX's Lucetta's eyes were straight upon the spectacle of the uncanny revel (1 May 1886), above.
Elizabeth-Jane's glancing directly out of the frame serves to establish a connection between herself and the reader that the text consistently affirms. Indeed, she is the serial novel's most appealing character, although Farfrae assumes the role of protagonist a number of times in the volume edition. This illustration and its telling caption suggest that Elizabeth as a "true wit" has apprehended and shares with the reader the knowledge that Lucetta is herself the unfortunate friend who has compromised herself with two men. Barnes, then, has achieved a double vision temporally and narratively, for the knowing glance suggests one of the two moments in Chapter XXIV: either it is a wistful look that denotes the moment given in its caption, Elizabeth-Jane's reflecting on her lost romance with Farfrae, after whom she has just demurely enquired, or it suggests that she has not been beguiled by her friend's confession once removed. Her look extends beyond the drawing-room of High Place Hall and into the reader's own world, establishing a rapport between character and reader through shared knowledge and acute interpretation of the moral dilemma of Lucetta's "friend."
The Other Illustrations depicting Lucetta Templeman: Emphasizing the Other Woman
- The man before her was not Henchard. (6 March)
- Henchard, with withering humility of demeanour, touched the brim of his hat to her. (10 April)
- "Well, Lucetta, I've a bit of news for ye," he said gaily. (17 April)
- Lucetta's eyes were straight upon the spectacle of the uncanny revel." (1 May)
Scanned images as well as text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Allingham, Philip V. "A Consideration of Robert Barnes' Illustrations for Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge as Serialised in the London Graphic: 2 January-15 May, 1886." Victorian Periodicals Review 28, 1 (Spring 1995): pp. 27-39
Foster, Vanda. A Visual History of Costume: The Nineteenth Century.London: B. T. Batsford, 1984.
Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. The Graphic 33 (1886).
Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge: A Story of a Man of Character. London: Osgood McIlvaine, 1895.
Jackson, Arlene. "The Mayor of Casterbridge: Realism and Metaphor."Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981. Pp. 96-104.
Created 28 July 2001
Last modified 21 March 2024